Copying or Moving Files and Folders
To copy or move files to different folders on your hard drive, it's sometimes easiest to use your mouse to drag them there. For example, here's how to move a file to a different folder on your desktop. In this case, I'm moving the Business file from the House folder to the Morocco folder.
- Align the two windows next to each other.
Click the first window and then hold the Windows key and press the → key. To fill the screen's left half, click the other window, hold the Windows key, and press the ← key. - Aim the mouse pointer at the file or folder you want to move.
In my example, I point at the Business file. - While holding down the right mouse button, move the mouse until it points at the destination folder.
I am dragging Business file from the House folder to the Morocco folder.
Moving the mouse drags the file along with it, and Windows explains that you're moving the file. (Be sure to hold down the right mouse button the entire time.)
Remember:
Always drag icons while holding down the right mouse button. Windows is then gracious enough to give you a menu of options when you position the icon, and you can choose to copy, move, or create a shortcut. If you hold down the left mouse button, Windows sometimes doesn't know whether you want to copy or move. - Release the mouse button and choose Copy Here, Move Here, or Create Shortcuts Here from the pop-up menu.
When dragging and dropping takes too much work, Windows offers a few other ways to copy or move files. Depending on your screen's current layout, some of the following onscreen tools may work more easily:
- Right-click menus:
Right-click a file or folder and choose Cut or Copy, depending on whether you want to move or copy it. Then right-click your destination folder and choose Paste. It's simple, it always works, and you needn't bother placing any windows side by side. - Ribbon commands:
In File Explorer, click your file or folder, click the Ribbon's Home tab at the top, and then click the Copy To (or Move To) button. A menu drops down, listing some common locations. Don't spot the right spot? Then click Choose Location and click through the drive and folders to reach the destination folder, and Windows transports the file accordingly. Although a bit cumbersome, this method works if you know the exact location of the destination folder. - Navigation Pane:
This panel along File Explorer's left edge lists popular locations: drives, networks, OneDrive, and oft-used folders. That lets you drag and drop a file into a spot on the Navigation Pane, sparing you the hassle of opening a destination folder.
Warning:
After you install a program on your computer, don't ever move that program's folder. Programs wedge themselves deeply into Windows. Moving the program may break it, and you'll have to reinstall it. However, feel free to move a program's shortcut. (Shortcut icons contain a little arrow.)
Seeing More Information about Files and Folders
Whenever you create a file or folder, Windows scrawls a bunch of secret hidden information on it, such as the date you created it, its size, and even more trivial stuff. Sometimes Windows even lets you add your own secret information, including reviews for your music files or thumbnail pictures for any of your folders.
You can safely ignore most of the information. Other times, tweaking that information is the only way to solve a problem.
To see what Windows is calling your files and folders behind your back, right-click the item and choose Properties from the pop-up menu. Choosing Properties on a song, for example, brings up bunches of details. Here's what each tab means:
- General:
This first tab shows the file's type (an MP3 file of the song "Getting Better"), its size (6.42MB), the program that opens it (in this case, the Music app), and the file's location.
Tip: Want a different program to open your file? Right-click the file, choose Properties, and click the Change button on the General tab. A list of your computer's available music players appears, letting you choose your preferred program. - Security:
On this tab, you control permissions, which are rules determining who can access the file and what they can do with it. System administrators earn high wages mostly for understanding this type of stuff. - Details:
True to its name, this tab reveals arcane details about a file. On digital photos, for example, this tab lists EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) data: the camera model, f-stop, aperture, focal length, and other items loved by photographers. On songs, this tab displays the song's ID3 tag (IDentify MP3), which includes the artist, album title, year, track number, genre, length, and similar information. - Previous Versions:
After you set up the Windows File History backup system, this tab lists all the previously saved versions of this file, ready for retrieval with a click.
Normally, these tidbits of information remain hidden unless you right-click a file or folder and choose Properties. But what if you want to see details about all the files in a folder, perhaps to find pictures taken on a certain day? For that, switch your folder's view to Details by following these steps:
- Click the View tab on the Ribbon along the folder's top edge.
A menu appears, listing the umpteen ways a folder can display your files. - In the Layout group, select Details.
The screen changes to show your files' names, with details about them stretching to the right in orderly columns.
Try all the views to see which view you prefer. (Windows remembers which views you prefer for different folders.)
Remember:
If you can't remember what a folder's toolbar buttons do, rest your mouse pointer over a button. Windows displays a helpful box summing up the button's mission.
Switch among the different views until you find the one that fits what you're trying to accomplish, be it to see a particular photo's creation date or see thumbnails of every photo in a folder.
Folders usually display files sorted alphabetically. To sort them differently, right-click a blank spot inside the folder and choose Sort By. A pop-up menu lets you choose to sort items by size, name, type, and other details.
Tip:
When the excitement of the Sort By menu wears off, try clicking the words at the top of each sorted column. Click Size, for example, to reverse the order, placing the largest files at the list's top.
Tip:
Feel free to add your own columns to Details view: Right-click a column header you don't need, and a drop-down menu appears, letting you choose a different criteria.
Writing to CDs and DVDs
Most computers today write information to CDs and DVDs by using a flameless approach known as burning. To see whether you're stuck with an older drive that can't burn discs, first remove any discs from inside the drive. Then from the desktop, double-click the taskbar's File Explorer icon and look at the icon for your CD or DVD drive.
Because computers always speak in secret code, here's what you can do with the disc drives in your computer:
- DVD-RW: These drives both read and write to CDs and DVDs.
- BD-ROM: These can read and write to CDs and DVDs, plus they can read Blu-ray discs.
- BD-RE: Although these have the same icon as BD-ROM drives, they can read and write to CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs.
If your PC has two CD or DVD burners, tell Windows which drive you want to handle your disc-burning chores: Right-click the drive, choose Properties, and click the Recording tab. Then choose your favorite drive in the top box.
Buying the right kind of blank CDs and DVDs for burning
Stores sell two types of CDs: CD-R (short for CD-Recordable) and CD-RW (short for CD-ReWritable). Here's the difference:
- CD-R: Most people buy CD-Rs because they're very cheap and they work fine for storing music or files. You can write to them until they fill up; then you can't write to them anymore. But that's no problem because most people don't want to erase their CDs and start over. They want to stick their burned disc into the car's stereo or stash it as a backup.
- CD-RW: Techies sometimes buy CD-RWs for making temporary backups of data. You can write information to them, just as you can with CD-Rs. But when a CD-RW fills up, you can erase it and start over with a clean slate - something not possible with a CD-R. However, CD-RWs cost more money, so most people stick with the cheaper and faster CD-Rs.
DVDs come in both R and RW formats, just like CDs, so the preceding R and RW rules apply to them, as well. Most DVD burners sold in the past few years can write to any type of blank CD or DVD.
Buying blank DVDs for older drives is chaos: The manufacturers fought over which storage format to use, confusing things for everybody. To buy the right blank DVD, check your computer's receipt to see what formats its DVD burner needs: DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, or DVD+RW.
- Discs come rated by their speed. For faster disc burning, buy the largest number "x" speed you can find, usually 52x for CDs and 16x for DVDs.
- Blank CDs are cheap; borrow one from a neighbor's kid to see whether it works in your drive. If it works fine, buy some of the same type. Blank DVDs, by contrast, are more expensive. Ask the store whether you can return them if your DVD drive doesn't like them.
- Blank Blu-ray discs cost a lot more than CDs or DVDs. Luckily, Blu-ray drives aren't very picky, and just about any blank Blu-ray disc will work.
- For some odd reason, Compact Discs and Digital Video Discs are spelled as discs, not disks.
- Although Windows can handle simple disc-burning tasks, it's extraordinarily awkward at duplicating discs. Most people give up quickly and buy third-party disc-burning software.
- It's currently illegal to make duplicates of movie DVDs in the United States - even to make a backup copy in case the kids scratch up the new Disney DVD. Windows can't copy DVDs on its own, but some programs on websites from other countries can handle the job.
Copying files to or from a CD or DVD
CDs and DVDs once hailed from the school of simplicity: You simply slid them into your CD player or DVD player, and they played. But as soon as those discs graduated to PCs, the problems started. When you create a CD or DVD, you must tell your PC what you're copying and where you intend to play it: Music for a CD player? Photo slideshows for a TV's DVD player? Or files to store on your computer?
If you choose the wrong answer, your disc won't work, and you've created yet another coaster.
Here are the Disc Creation rules:
- Music:
To create a CD that plays music in your CD player or car stereo. You need to fire up the Windows Media Player program and burn an audio CD. - Photo slide shows:
Windows doesn't include the Windows DVD Maker bundled with Windows Vista and Windows 7. To create photo slideshows, you need a third-party program.
If you just want to copy files to a CD or DVD, perhaps to save as a backup or to give to a friend, stick around.
Follow these steps to write files to a new blank CD or DVD. (If you're writing files to a CD or DVD that you've written to before, jump ahead to Step 4.)
- Insert the blank disc into your disc burner and push in the tray. Then click or tap the Notification box that appears in the screen's upper-right corner.
- When the Notification box asks how you'd like to proceed, click the box's Burn Files to a Disc option.
Windows displays a Burn a Disc dialog box and asks you to create a title for the disc.
If the Notification box disappeared before you could click on it, eject your disc, push it back in, and have your hand ready on the mouse. (Alternatively, you can bring back the Notification box by right-clicking the disc drive's icon in File Explorer and choosing the Open Autoplay option.) - Type a name for the disc, describe how you want to use the disc, and click Next.
Unfortunately, Windows limits your CD or DVD's title to 16 characters. Instead of typing Family Picnic atop Orizaba in 2012, stick to the facts: Orizaba, 2012. Or, just click Next to use the default name for the disc: the current date.
Windows can burn the files to the disc two different ways. To decide which method works best for you, it offers you two options:- Like a USB flash drive:
This method lets you read and write files to the disc many times, a handy way to use discs as portable file carriers. Unfortunately, that method isn't compatible with some CD or DVD players connected to home stereos or TVs. - With a CD/DVD player:
If you plan to play your disc on a fairly new home stereo disc player that's smart enough to read files stored in several different formats, select this method.
- Like a USB flash drive:
- Tell Windows which files to write to disc.
Now that your disc is ready to accept the files, tell Windows what information to send its way. You can do this in any of several ways:- Drag and drop your files and/or folders into the drive's File Explorer window.
- Right-click the item you want to copy, be it a single file, folder, or selected files and folders. When the pop-up menu appears, choose Send To and select your disc burner from the menu. (The pop-up menu lists the disc's title you chose in Step 2.)
- Drag and drop files and/or folders on top of the burner's icon in File Explorer.
- From your My Music, My Pictures, or My Documents folder, click the Share tab and then click Burn to Disc. This button copies all of that folder's files (or just the files you've selected) to the disc as files.
- No matter which method you choose, Windows dutifully looks over the information and copies it to the disc you inserted in the first step. A progress window appears, showing the disc burner's progress. When the progress window disappears, Windows has finished burning the disc.
- Close your disc-burning session by ejecting the disc.
When you're through copying files to the disc, push your drive's Eject button (or right-click the drive's icon in File Explorer and choose Eject). Windows closes the session, adding a finishing touch to the disc that lets other PCs read it.
Tip:
If you try to copy a large batch of files to a disc - more than will fit - Windows complains immediately. Copy fewer files at a time, perhaps spacing them out over two discs.
Tip:
Most programs let you save files directly to disc. Choose Save from the File menu and select your CD burner. Put a disc (preferably one that's not already filled) into your disc drive to start the process.
Duplicating a CD or DVD
Windows doesn't include any way to duplicate a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray disc. It can't even make a copy of a music CD. (That's why so many people buy CD-burning programs.)
But it can copy all of a CD's or DVD's files to a blank disc by using this two-step process:
- Copy the files and folders from the CD or DVD to a folder on your PC.
- Copy those same files and folders back to a blank CD or DVD.
That gives you a duplicate CD or DVD, which is handy when you need a second copy of an essential backup disc.
You can try this process on a music CD or DVD movie, but it won't work. (I tried.) It works only when you're duplicating a disc containing computer programs or data files.